Dance: Grade 6

Technique

Choreography

Nonverbal Communication

Critical and Creative Thinking

History and Culture

Healthful Living

Making Connections

The student will identify and demonstrate movement elements and skills and apply them while performing dance.

The student will implement choreographic principles, processes, and structures.

The student will use dance as a medium to communicate meaning and/or artistic intent.

The student will demonstrate and apply critical, creative, and analytic thinking in response to dance.

The student will demonstrate an understanding of dance in various cultures and historical periods.

The student will identify and apply healthful practices related to dance.

The student will make connections between dance and other arts disciplines, other content areas, and the world.

Demonstrate movement from a variety of dance techniques and kinesthetic skills (for example, alignment, balance, articulation of isolated body parts, elevation, landing).

Identify and demonstrate basic dance steps, positions, and patterns in three or more genres or forms of dance.

Create and refine complex transitions between shapes formed on low, middle, and high levels.

Identify and demonstrate an increasing range of movement qualities (for example, sustained, percussive, vibratory, bound, free-flowing).

Demonstrate increasing kinesthetic awareness, concentration, focus, and projection when performing movement skills.

Demonstrate accurate memorization and replication of movement sequences.

Demonstrate and use correct dance vocabulary to describe the actions (for example, skip, gallop, swing, bend) and movement elements (for example, levels, direction) in a brief movement study.

Continue to refine technique through teacher correction and self-evaluation.

Use movement exploration to discover, compose, and perform solutions to movement problems based on a variety of stimuli (for example, sensory cues, ideas, moods).

Create a dance sequence, repeat it, and then vary it by making changes in the time, space, and/or force/energy.

Identify and demonstrate the structures or forms of AB, ABA, canon, call and response, and narrative.

Create original dance phrases or brief movement studies that demonstrate the principles of contrast and transition.

Work alone, with a partner, or in a small group during the choreographic process.

Demonstrate the following partnering skills: creating contrasting and complementary shapes and receiving and supporting small amounts of weight.

Analyze and describe the choreographic tools used in major dance works and in those of his or her peers.

Translate basic motif description/dance notation into movement and use description/notation to record dance phrases.

Identify and demonstrate the difference between literal and abstract gestures.

Analyze the main idea, theme, or feeling of a dance in relation to his or her personal context.

Explain the ways that different accompaniment (for example, sound, music, spoken text) can affect the meaning of a dance.

Explain the manner in which lighting, costuming, props, and

Create and perform a brief dance sequence that communicates a topic of personal significance.

Create and demonstrate multiple solutions to movement problems; identify the most interesting solutions and explain choices.

Compare and contrast two or more subtly differing dance compositions in terms of space (for example, shape, pathways), time (for example, rhythm, tempo), force/energy/movement qualities (for example, weight, flow).

Identify and describe aesthetic criteria within dances (for example, skill of the performers, originality of the choreography, intent of the choreographer).

Demonstrate appropriate audience behavior while watching and responding to live or recorded dance performances.

Perform four or more simple folk dances, social dances, classical dances, and/or theatrical dances and identify and describe the similarities and differences among them.

Identify the role of dance in various cultures and historical contexts and distinguish the similarities and differences among them.

Identify notable figures in dance and distinguish and/or evaluate the similarities and differences among their works and/or contributions.

Observe and/or perform excerpts from masterworks or etudes based on masterworks (with all copyright restrictions observed).

Identify and describe the ways that dance promotes strength, health and well-being, physical safety, and reduced risk of injury.

Identify exercises to warm up specific muscle groups and explain the ways that warming up prepares the body for dancing.

Identify the ways that lifestyle choices, body image, peer pressure, cultural media, and social environment affect the dancer.

Identify the bones in the skeletal system and demonstrate an understanding of proper alignment.

Identify, describe and analyze the similarities and differences among the arts.

Respond to a dance by using another art form; explain the connections between the dance and his or her response to it (for example, use a painting to respond to a dance that he or she has seen).

Create a brief movement phrase that demonstrates an understanding of a concept or idea from another discipline or everyday life (for example, symmetry, asymmetry).

Identify and describe the similarities and differences between the choreographic process and the process of another discipline (for example, the writing process, scientific inquiry, and the creative process across all of the arts).

Identify and describe applications of technology and documentation in the field of dance (for example, technical production, dance notation, research, choreography, reconstruction of historical dance works).

Identify and describe the responsibilities associated with various careers in dance.